Warning: DO NOT install the latest version of CCleaner

A month ago, I wrote about how I felt Avast was ruining CCleaner, the excellent system cleaning software it took over when it acquired Piriform last year. In Avast’s short tenure, we’ve already seen CCleaner suffer from malware, bundled software, and pop-up ads. In my article headline I asked “what’s next?” Well, with a new version of CCleaner available to download, we now have the answer. Inevitably, it’s not good. SEE ALSO: Avast is ruining CCleaner — malware, bundled software, popup ads… what’s next? The changelog for CCleaner 5.45 lists the following ‘improvements’: In this release, we’ve made stability improvements and added better reporting to allow us to deliver faster bug fixes and software improvements. System Cleaning Removed Windows.old cleaning rule (wiping this folder after a Windows update breaks certain graphics drivers) Disk Analyzer Fixed a crash if analyzing with the ‘Everything’ option checked User Preferences Removed a GDPR privacy setting that was not applicable (more info) Legal Added a check to prevent the use of the application in embargoed countries Reporting CCleaner now sends a heartbeat every 12 hours which reports up-to-date usage statistics to allow for faster delivery of bug fixes and product improvements When you run the updated version, you’ll notice some worrying changes — active monitoring refuses to stay turned off, and the privacy settings have been removed in the free version. Avast has also stopped users from being able to quit the software — yes, really. If you go into Options and select Monitoring, you… [Read full story]